Tabnak – While the United States has been trying to increase economic and political pressures on Iran, after withdrawing from the 2015 nuclear deal, Russia continues to signal its willingness for cooperating with the other remaining parties of the deal to keep it alive and to help Iran overcome the negative impacts of the US policies.
In this vein, Russia says US efforts to bring down Iran’s oil exports to zero would lead to nothing with a top official describing Washington’s objectives in pursuing sanctions against Iran as “unrealistic.”
Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted by the media in Tehran as saying that Washington had already become too isolated in its agenda against Iran to be able to create an international consensus to halt Iran’s oil sales. “I don’t think this [bringing Iran’s oil sales] would be feasible,” Ryabkov was quoted as saying by Tasnim news agency.
“Furthermore and more importantly, I don’t think America’s expectation to that effect would be realistic, particularly at a time that it has become internationally isolated over its anti-Iran drive.”
The Russian official added that the international community believed the 2015 Iran nuclear deal – specifically mechanisms in it that authorized Iran’s oil sales - needed to be preserved “due to political and economic reasons.” Preserving the deal, he added, would also lead to a stronger stability in the global energy market and help promote non-proliferation.
Ryabkov further said Moscow had serious plans to protect the Iran deal – technically known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) - in face of US pressures, adding that arrangements were being done with Chinese as well as European partners to the same effect.
In the same vein and in another interview with the Russian newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta, Ryabkov said Russia and the European Union have outlined an action plan to resist US sanctions against Iran.
"We have outlined a set of measures to be discussed with the Europeans,” he said. “Plus, our internal efforts are needed to get prepared to the moment when the Americans proceed to the second phase of re-imposing their extra-territorial sanctions against Iran."
“We are making very intense contacts both with Iranian friends but also with European colleges and with our Chinese partners,” he said.
Last month, US President Donald Trump installed a wave of sanctions targeting Iran's financial, automotive, aviation and metals sectors and threatened that a second wave would “ratchet up to yet another level" in November. The second wave of US sanctions is due to kick in on Nov. 4 and hit Iran's exports of oil and its derivatives as well as the country's banking sector.
